Mo fumes, although this is as close to cooperation as she’s gotten from the medical household so far: “How soon can we get the results? The veterinary hospital was able to get the lab tests turned around overnight.”

  “I’ll expedite it.” Phibes is obviously reluctant but at least it’s not a no.

  “Well then. I’ll see you next Monday morning.” Mo stands. “And it’s Doctor O’Brien.”

  * * *

  Despite the vet-prescribed course of chelating drugs, Candy continues to worsen over the course of the week. On Friday morning, a few hours before the Queen is due to give blood, Candy undergoes a major seizure and is subsequently pronounced dead.

  * * *

  PHANGs don’t play well with daylight, which leads to logistical problems when I need to meet with Pete and Derek in a secure briefing room.

  Chateau Dracula, as we’ve nicknamed the PHANG safe house, meets regulation standards for security. But we can’t simply take top secret documents out of a secure building and transport them across town to work in a badly insulated 1920s suburban terraced house with internet and possibly nosy neighbors. I am pretty sure if I suggested it to the blue-suiters their reaction would be somewhere between “Hell, no!” and “When did you stop taking your meds, sir?”

  So in the end I ask the experts what to do about secure vampire transport. Which means interacting with Mhari Murphy, Dame Karnstein, Chair of the Permanent House of Lords Select Committee on Sanguinary Affairs, and my long-before-I-met-Mo ex. “We use prisoner transports,” she tells me over the phone—she’s a PHANG, too, and I’m not walking into her nest again during daylight hours. “It’s all outsourced: I can give you the name of the bloke at HiveCo Security who subcontracts for us.”

  “HiveCo?” I stare at my handset. “The outsourcing and management consulting company?”

  “They do public sector outsourcing management, yes.” Mhari’s tone is dry. “Do try to keep up, Bob. They won the metahuman prisoner transport contract from SerCo during the last auction. SerCo still handle normies but HiveCo’s people are equipped for handling supervillains, sorcerers, anything above and beyond your run-of-the-mill gangster.” She clears her throat. “I’ll email you Jared’s contact, the rest is up to you—I assume you’ve got someone in Facilities who can handle it.”

  “Okay, thanks—” I find myself listening to a dial tone. That’s different: I’m usually the one who hangs up on her.

  So I ask Dennis, our point man in HR, and Dennis hooks me up with Alice from Facilities, our fixer for general logistics, and she talks to Jared (after confirming with Legal that we don’t need to hold a full tendering process because HiveCoSec already hold the portfolio), and I then forward her deal memo to Iris to sign off on and then, only then, after two whole days and innumerable emails, do I get to look for a vacant slot in Scooby 14 and invite Derek and Pete to the meeting. Next I email Jared that I need a prisoner transport from Chateau Dracula to Mahogany Row and back again and by the way, they’re staff, not prisoners (this last bit is very important). And then I have to go round up an escort who will get Pete out of bed and into the van on time and who can be read into the program, and there’s really only one possible choice, so I end up going back to HR (for approval) and Security (for vetting) and Iris (for budget) and Mhari (for a chewing-out) and then finally a phone call to beg Janice’s indulgence (because misery loves company).

  Bureaucracy, huh?

  The following day finds me lurking beside the loading bay, acting like a smoker who’s left his lighter at home. It’s cold and gray and threatening to rain when a white armored box van with tiny mirrored glass windows pulls in and parks beside me with its hazard lights blinking. A bloke in uniform hops out of the passenger side door and heads for the door of the prisoner compartment, side-eying me warily.

  As he’s about to slide a key in the door I realize what he’s doing. “Hey! Stop that! You can’t do that here!”

  “What?” He turns toward me, hand moving toward his holstered taser.

  I hold up my warrant card. “You’re the transport for the POISON APPLE team, two officers, right? You can’t drop them off here. You have to pull inside the loading bay and lower the shutters before they debark.”

  “Nah, got a schedule to keep to. End of the line, mate.” He turns the key so I flex my mental muscles and squeeze.

  “No,” I say very firmly, then relax my grip on his soul just before he squishes. “Try again. Pull indoors and I’ll lower the shutters for you, then you can open that door. Unless you want to explain your schedule to a pair of very angry vampires with sunburn.”

  The driver’s mate blanches. “Vampires?”

  “Lovely people, they will just be slightly irate if you kick them out in the daylight. Tell your mate to repark while I let you in.” I smirk at him, then step through the side door and hit the start button on the shutters.

  Some minutes later the driver and his mate hunker down in the locked prisoner transport cabin as Janice climbs down the steps. She’s clearly annoyed to be up this late, but she’s a trouper. “Hey, Pete,” she calls inside. “Get your ass out here, time is money.”

  It takes a few seconds, but Pete finally shows his nose. “Go on inside,” I say, waving at the inner door on the loading dock. “I’ll meet you in a minute, got to work the shutters first.” I should have applied for a PA, I tell myself.

  Janice hauls Pete along behind me as I lead them to Scooby 14, where Emma and Morgan, our Security Officer, are waiting with Derek and a stack of paperwork. Pete startles violently when he sees Derek, then shuffles to a seat opposite.

  Derek rubs his hands with glee as he sorts his documents alphabetically, then reaches for his pen: Janice frowns irritably as she signs, but Pete just slumps like a badly hungover party survivor.

  “Pete.” I nudge him verbally. “You need to be read in. Start with the top copy”—the Official Secrets Act, complete with the not-for-public consumption classified schedule—“then work your way down.” I wait almost a minute. “Pete?”

  He finally raises his gaze but declines to make eye contact. “What is the point,” he says. It’s less a question than it is a smoke-signal of despondency.

  Think, Bob. “We need you on this team.” I tap the printout of the Act in front of him. Then I wait.

  “You don’t need me. Nobody needs me.” Behind him, Emma and Morgan exchange a significant look. But he reaches for the top page and initials, not bothering to read any of it.

  “That’s where you’re wrong,” I tell him. “Keep signing.” It’s per regulation. Pete’s already signed the OSA multiple times but we need him to re-up on this one because he may be dealing with the Palace, there’s the potential interaction between the oath of office and the oath of loyalty to the Queen to worry about, and Cthulhu have mercy on us if we fuck up.

  “I don’t see the point.” Pete signs anyway. “I’ll just get people hurt … or worse.” He glances at Derek.

  “What?” Derek looks perplexed.

  Pete looks at me helplessly. “I killed him.”

  “He’s sitting right there,” I point out. “Looks pretty much und—I mean, alive, to me, all right?”

  Janice clears her throat. “A word?” She raises an eyebrow at me: “Outside?”

  Morgan buzzes us out into the corridor. Janice leans against the wall. “I swear, those two…” She shakes her head.

  “How long has this been going on?”

  “Pete’s been avoiding Derek. I mean, really avoiding him. He only comes out of his room when Derek’s not in the house, working or visiting his girlfriend”—Derek has a girlfriend? I want to pinch myself—“I caught Pete emptying a half-gallon milk jug he’d been using as a commode the other day. Living with them under the same roof is like living with a pair of tomcats—I swear, it feels like Pete’s afraid Derek’s going to murder him in his sleep, meanwhile Derek is oblivious—”

  “This is about what happened in D.C., isn’t it?”

  “Yeah.” Janice nods. “Pete got infected, and his puppet-master made him bite Derek. So he thinks he murdered Derek.”

  Pete, I gather, has not regaled Janice with his take on modern theology, otherwise she wouldn’t imagine his sense of guilt to be so puerile.

  “Okay, clearer now,” I tell her, and hit the buzzer, thinking, Spare me from this middle management bullshit. Because what comes next is middle age and responsibility and, oh noes, I might be in danger of having to grow up or something.

  I go in and sit beside Pete, displacing Janice, who plops into my previously occupied chair and rolls her eyes at me. “Pete,” I say, “Derek’s right here. Still breathing and everything, you know? So have you finished signing the Act already so I can tell you what this is about?”

  Pete shoves the stack of pages toward Morgan and leans back. “I suppose so.”

  He’s not going to make this easy, is he? “I get that you’re feeling bad right now, but I want you on this operation”—little white lie, I’d prefer pretty much anyone else—“which is all about preventing a murder, and possibly averting a mass casualty attack on the nation.” Pete doesn’t seem captivated, but at least I’ve got Janice’s attention. “The cover on this file is coded POISON APPLE, and it’s classified TOP SECRET because it involves a risk to national security.” Pete still isn’t showing any interest, so I push harder: “We think the assholes who turned you both in D.C.”—my gesture takes in Pete and Derek—“are hot for payback, and to get the point across they’re going to assassinate the Queen.”

  “What the fuck?” Janice looks scandalized.

  “Well, we rescued the President right under their noses, didn’t we?” Derek sounds just a little bit smug. “It’s bound to be a sore point.” Especially as his POTUS-ness was very grateful, but that’s beside the point when you’re dealing with the US government in the wake of an autogolpe—an internal coup—carried out by the Operational Phenomenology Unit, also known as the Nazgûl, our archrivals (and the ultimate worked example of the perils of regulatory capture). “They probably think Brenda is a purely ceremonial cake-topper with no actual power, and it won’t matter anyway once they dismantle the moon and use it to build the ultimate summoning hypergrid or whatever the fuck they’re really working on.”

  I lean forward. “The trouble is, Brenda is not without power—it’s just that her power can only be used once. So, Pete. We are putting together a team to keep the Queen on life support even if it all goes pear-shaped, and we have a very specific role in mind for you.

  “Are you on board?”

  * * *

  Getting dragged out of the wankfest last Tuesday to attend the POISON APPLE meeting where Iris announced that the Queen’s dog had been poisoned gave me an excuse to bail on the execrable and interminable FLAT EARTH briefings. But instead I got to spend an entire day in one-on-one tutorials about forensic toxicology. So I feel the correct amount of Imposter Syndrome while I’m briefing everyone on the POISON APPLE team.

  While we were still waiting for more information about Candy’s owner—no thanks to the Palace—we have preparation work to get on with.

  Iris put it in perspective in our next team meeting: “POISON APPLE has been set up—on paper—as an exercise exploring the response to an attack on the head of state. That’s the cover story. What’s not public is that it’s not an exercise. It seems almost certain that the Queen has been poisoned. Which means POISON APPLE will be followed in due course by Operation FAIREST.

  “POISON APPLE focuses on investigation and response. The investigation team will trace the attacker—DMM is not widely available, it’s an exotic neurotoxin. The response team will then go after the attacker.” Everybody sat up a bit straighter on hearing that. “If there are threat actors on British soil, you will use any necessary force to neutralize them. Arrests would be ideal: live witnesses, evidence to back it up in case it leads to sanctions or even a shooting war. But if you can’t arrest them, kill them. Skulls on spikes, ladies and gentlemen: the PM likes to see skulls on spikes.”

  Iris stalked around the front of the room, oozing malice. She wasn’t the only angry one: the mood around the table was febrile. I didn’t vote for her, but Brenda’s the national granny figure, a unifying aegis who smiles and waves benignly and doesn’t put people’s noses out of joint the way politicians do. Even the IRA knew better than to go after her. If someone poisoned your government-issued great-grandmother, you’d be pissed off, too.

  (To say nothing of the dog.)

  Anyway, to cut a long meeting short, read the minutes:

  Mo is taking point on Investigation, along with some former colleagues from the Home Office and a senior officer from Royalty and Specialist Protection. I’ve been given overall responsibility for the Response team. I’ve got Derek on tap for planning, Gerry Lockhart on speed-dial for external assets, and meetings to come with: the RaSP cops (who are very protective toward Her Maj), our friends from the Artists Rifles (I have an OCCULUS team on standby), a couple of Q-Division support people who come highly recommended by my old mate Brains, and … Pete?

  What am I going to do with the vampire vicar?

  Quite a lot, as it turns out …

  * * *

  So. While we’re ploughing through the paperwork and onboarding a dozen operatives who’ve been pre-vetted for Top Secret work, some routine work oozes in to fill the gaps in my schedule. Including my regular monthly session with Dr. Mike Armstrong, who is still the Senior Auditor—but not for much longer.

  “What’s the plan for, uh, your succession? I mean, with me?” I ask, taking a seat in the visitor’s chair by his desk. (It’s an all-new office, larger than his old one, with a pair of bland Victorian paintings on the wall that signal his civil service pay grade to those who understand how the Government Art Collection works.) “I mean, obviously Mo can’t…”

  “Yes, that could be seen as a conflict of interest.” Mike is amused. “I believe His Majesty is leaning toward commissioning an External Auditor, someone who is both above question themselves and has experience in that area.”

  “Would that someone happen to be you?”

  “Maybe.” He tilts his head thoughtfully. “At least at first? I expect to retire in a couple of years, but for now it’s still you and me and the priest’s confessional.”

  “Right.” Because this is what the Auditors do with us, when they’re not sitting as a tribunal. “I’m ready.” I lean back in my chair.

  Dr. Armstrong leans toward me and enunciates, very clearly: “Ruby. Seminole. Kriegspiel. Hatchet. Execute Sitrep One.”

  My brain checks out but my lips and larynx move without my involvement. “Subjective integrity is maintained. Subjective continuity of experience is maintained. Subject observes no tampering.” It’s not me speaking, it’s the Oath of Office. It’s like secure boot firmware for the brain, it gets to run before my mental operating system. Dr. Armstrong is my authenticator—it’s not just about the codewords, it’s about the person using them being bound by an Oath of Office with the responsibilities of an Auditor. He gets to sign off once a month on a piece of paper, using a quill pen dipped in his own blood, to the effect that I am not demonically possessed, ideologically compromised, knowingly attempting to circumvent my Oath or otherwise violate the Official Secrets Act, committing acts of gross moral turpitude—

  I only made that last one up. But the rest is, as the kids say, totally for realz.

  “Exit supervision mode.”

  I blink woozily while I regain conscious control. I glance at my watch—the old-fashioned clockwork kind you’re allowed to wear in a secure area—and see that about fifteen minutes passed while I was outside my own head. “Am I clean?” I ask.

  The Senior Auditor makes a noncommittal sound as he pours tea. His hand shakes slightly. We’ve been doing this dance for years now—and it’s a regular part of the ritual.

  “You’re not under investigation or suspension at this time,” Mike finally announces. “You know I’m not allowed to tell you any more.” I don’t bother rolling my eyes. “I know you’re lying to the Reverend Russell: I also know why and, on the record, I think you’re entirely justified.” I relax slightly. “If I may make so bold, though, you might want to lay off the irreverent humor for a few months, especially with respect to the royal family.” His lip wrinkles in mild distaste. “I know, but it’s the framework we operate within, and you’re in a visible management role now. Got to lead by example, alas, and that means not making fun of, how did you put it, Jug-Ears and the Nonce, when you might be swearing allegiance to one of them before long.”

  Did I really say that out loud? “It’s a fair cop: but I can’t help it if every time I see Prince Andrew on TV I want to put salt on his back.” The classified Epstein briefing crossed my desk back when we were panicking about cultists getting their claws into the Cabinet. The Cabinet mostly stayed out of Epstein’s little black book, but the future King’s kid brother left a slug trail through its pages: that came as a nasty wake-up call, let me tell you.

  Dr. Armstrong gives me a thin smile. “He’s above your pay grade or mine, but there’s always a plan on file somewhere; meanwhile he isn’t next-in-line anymore unless something happens to the Duke of Cambridge and his son.”

  “Corgi attack. Ravens at the Tower specially trained to drop hand grenades. Rabid ferrets in the cockpit of the royal helicopter. It could happen. Just saying.”

  “It won’t,” the Senior Auditor says repressively. “Now, on to other matters—”

  “Is my audit complete?” I push.

  “Yes, Bob, your audit is complete. Sit down and drink your tea, we have other things to discuss.”

  “Shoes, ships, sealing wax? That kind of thing?”

  “And why the sea is boiling hot, and whether pigs have wings; also whether you’re hunting a Snark or a Boojum.” I see Mike’s winding up to make an important point, in his own indirect manner. “The POISON APPLE team is hunting for an apple-poisoner, obviously. And maybe the poisoner is the obvious sort of miscreant—a snark, let us say—but what if it turns out to be a boojum instead, and softly and silently vanishes you away?”